I am going to be building my second set of cornhole boards. My first set was a few years ago and I painted them

I have attached a picture of what I'm trying to achieve. Rather than stick colored decals over my stain I wanted to have the logo be stain.

I want to put a light colored stain over my birch plywood and have the John Deere logo and text be a darker stain. The video I watched on YouTube shows a guy masking off the whole logo area with painters tape, tracing his logo onto the painters tape and then using an X-Acto knife to cut and remove the tape from where he's going to stain. Right after he applied his stain, he remove the tape and the edge of his lines were perfectly crisp.

In the video he did not say if he used a regular waterbased stain or a gel stain.

I wanted to check this forum and based on everyone's experience what is the best way to achieve the outcome I'm looking for with less likely of bleeding lines

Vulcan900 wrote:I am going to be building my second set of cornhole boards. My first set was a few years ago and I painted them

I have attached a picture of what I'm trying to achieve. Rather than stick colored decals over my stain I wanted to have the logo be stain.

I want to put a light colored stain over my birch plywood and have the John Deere logo and text be a darker stain. The video I watched on YouTube shows a guy masking off the whole logo area with painters tape, tracing his logo onto the painters tape and then using an X-Acto knife to cut and remove the tape from where he's going to stain. Right after he applied his stain, he remove the tape and the edge of his lines were perfectly crisp.

In the video he did not say if he used a regular waterbased stain or a gel stain.

I wanted to check this forum and based on everyone's experience what is the best way to achieve the outcome I'm looking for with less likely of bleeding lines

Gel stain is definitely your friend here. I use it myself and have excellent luck with crisp lines. Really take your time pressing the tape down and running your finger on the edges after your cut out, then apply your gel, and you should be good to go.

Gel stain is definitely your friend here. I use it myself and have excellent luck with crisp lines. Really take your time pressing the tape down and running your finger on the edges after your cut out, then apply your gel, and you should be good to go.

-Tom

After laying down my light colored stain, should I do any poly before the darker stain for the logos?

Gel stain is definitely your friend here. I use it myself and have excellent luck with crisp lines. Really take your time pressing the tape down and running your finger on the edges after your cut out, then apply your gel, and you should be good to go.

-Tom

After laying down my light colored stain, should I do any poly before the darker stain for the logos?

I would not, no. The poly will pretty well seal the pores of the wood up, you won't get any penetration with the darker stain. Lay down the light first, give it plenty of time to set so tape doesn't pull the color up, then run your darker gel stain through whatever you cut out, and it will take, over the light stain. And once again, mind your tape and make sure all your edges are down really nice, the gel stain will give you the best results. Good luck

Vulcan900 wrote:I can use regular stain for the light and gel stain for the logos? Going to use frog tape to mask off the logos.

I'm waiting to hear back from the local decal guy to see what the decal route would cost me.

Correct, the regular for the light won't matter as you are covering the whole surface, gel definitely for the area inside the logo. Frog tape is my choice of tape, I get the cleanest lines with it. I would look into the decal guy cutting your a "stencil" to stick down and stain through to get the crispest logos possible. Might cost a few bucks, but in terms of your overall build cost, a drop in the bucket, and you get the perfect logo done in stain. I have gone this route with paint and stain before myself, use it as a template rather than the finished logo. Stick down, rub stain, let dry, peel up decal, perfect logo in stain on deck.

This was done to model a set of vintage water skis, all striping done with gel stain, clean lines, and a clean headache to keep track of what side of tape to stick down on each measuring mark, and what color goes in what order.

Very nice!!! Decal guy wanted $75 for my logos in the John Deere colors . I'll have to call him and see the cost on a plain color and use them as a stencil. You think a decal would produce crisper lines than frog tape? I know my exacto lines in frog tape wouldn't look as Straight and smooth lol

Either way will be good, if you cut through the tape, just run your finger real good around where you have cut and you should be good to go, decal as a stencil will still be precise of course, but yeah, either way, I am sure it will come out nice.

Decided that I'm going to stain the tops, use decals for the logos but paint the border around the outside. Once I get the boards stained should I apply a few coats of poly before painting my border around the outside?

Vulcan900 wrote:Decided that I'm going to stain the tops, use decals for the logos but paint the border around the outside. Once I get the boards stained should I apply a few coats of poly before painting my border around the outside?

I would put a coat down after waiting a day or so for the stain to set in. After that, tape off on the inside of the border, inboard on the board, then put some more poly down on the outside edge of the tape, let dry, and then paint border. This will plug any potential bleeds under the tape and give you a nice crisp paintline on the border, this technique is known around here as "the shaggy method."